Opinions were divided on the remake of Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered. By which I mean, I thought it was absolute and total garbage, while Zack thought it was “fantastic.” As the one of us who was right, I’m feeling emboldened by fan reaction (thanks IGN) to a new free update added to the game on Steam. Along with a bunch of supremely crappy new outfits, it also still fails to add all of the quality-of-life improvements that the second trilogy of Tomb Raider games received in their remastering.
The 2024 remastering of Lara’s original ’90s adventures managed to somehow make the games’ control schemes even worse than they already were, while just slapping crude new textures over the top of the originals instead of actually remastering the game itself. It has received plenty of updates since, but still not the better upgrades applied to the second trilogy, and players are getting pretty frustrated about it. Now, with the latest free update containing some half-assed new costumes so bad that the artists on the original remastering have disowned them, things have really kicked off.
The patch, released on March 12, added a new Challenge mode to the game, letting you adjust the minutiae of your health, damage, enemy numbers and so on, and completing certain challenges will reward you with the new outfits included in the update, which themselves bestow passive bonuses when used. And as IGN noted, players have taken to Reddit to voice their fury about the terrible quality of these new outfits.
From shades that look like they’re fire-damaged to hilariously wiggly lines on clothing, it all looks incredibly slapdash and unfinished. Redditors are also suggesting that genAI could have been involved in the clothing’s creation, given the sloppy look of symbols and designs. YouTuber RUUs Room shared some of the disastrous designs, and compared them to the versions that had been promoted.
These designs are so bad that one developer who worked on the original remastering took to X to make clear that he and his colleagues were not involved. “Just to clarify,” he wrote, “I was not involved in the art direction of this new patch.” In fact, “Nome of the original developers at Saber was involvement in it (sic).”
Hey folks, just to clarify. I was not involved in the art direction of this new patch with the Challenge Mode for Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered. Nome of the original developers at Saber was involvement in it.
— Giovanni Lucca (@playeroldskool) March 12, 2026
Those who are responsible, Aspyr Media, have yet to respond, and we’ve reached out to ask them what went wrong. Aspyr recently came under fire for similarly crummy-looking skins and textures in its first trailer for Deus Ex Remastered, which was originally supposed to release in February but has since lost its release date entirely.
